The last word on that last page of a manuscript always brings a sense of relief and, if not a feeling of satisfaction, at least a sense of “Thank goodness that’s over!” Well, at least that’s where I find myself after writing those closing lines— which I’m almost never happy with— and where I found myself yesterday afternoon at about 4:30 pm give or take a few.

THE RESURRECTIONIST IS FINISHED!

Ok. Let’s be realistic about this. What really happened yesterday is the completion of a 51,609 word manuscript that is in serious, serious need of editing and beta reading! Unfortunately, that means the game right now is hurry up and wait” while the manuscript steeps on a shelf and I switch back to other projects for a while. I don’t plan on taking King’s advice to the letter and letting it sit for 6 months, but my brain definitely needs some time away from it before I can edit the thing.

In the mean time, here are a few pictures of what a 51k manuscript actually looks like, printed out, sectioned into chapters, and stuffed into a 1.5″ binder.

Pruned Cover Page

Beginning of a random chapter, eight in this case.

Binder on from the edge

Top left corner of last page

And yes, those image files are probably way, way too big, but hey, I’m a writer not a designer! 😉

This is the fourth full on “novel” manuscript that I’ve written, and very probably that second fastest one I’ve turned out a draft too. The story idea itself was floating around in the back of my mind for nearly a year, and I could never quite get it straightened out in such a way to get it off the ground. Of all the things I expected to help, Scrivener turned out to be what I needed— not that I used half of the feature set that monster provides. Well, that and the Nine Day Novel by Steve Windsor. He has a whole series of books on techniques for writing fast and the things that requires. Now, by his standards, Resurrectionist was written at a snails pace (10k a day, wholly crap! I’m lucky to get 800 words a day!), but the logic and techniques themselves are quite valid. Plus the books are fun to read through as well. I’d highly recommend heading over to Literature and Latte and grabbing their free trial. Then, heading over to Amazon and grabbing Nine Day Novel and Nine Day Outlining (you get a much better example of how the outlining process works with that one than the first so start there if that’s all you need).

And now, it’s back to editing! Maybe I can get The Erasable Man turned into something worth reading after all!

PS. I do plan on doing a more detailed write up on my thoughts about Scrivener here sometime soon.